When the Soviet empire began to unravel in 1989, Cubans were hit with serious food shortages. From 1991 to 1995, people were getting only about 1800 calories a day and had to walk or cycle wherever they needed to go. The result was halving of the obesity rate to just 7%. In the following years, …
Just recently a close family member suffered a stroke that significantly affected her memory. She had gotten into her car one day leaving the house unlocked and the garage door open and headed off to the mountain to meet a close friend. The only problem was she thought it was 1936 and that she was …
The June 2nd Time magazine ran a cover story titled The truth about vaccines. With the subtitle Worried about autism, many parents are opting out of immunizations. How they’re putting the rest of us at risk. Just a month earlier I read another article in a medical journal titled, Most Mumps Cases Occurred in Immunized …
The practice of entomophagy (en-toh-MOFF-uh-jee) or eating bugs is done in at least 113 countries. The species most commonly eaten were ants, termites and a species of mondo cricket. Surprisingly, or maybe not, insects are more nutritious than beef or pork. For example, crickets contain more than 1,550 milligrams of iron, 25 milligrams of zinc …
Cocoa beans contain a lot of potentially beneficial flavanols . . . more than tea, red wine, apples, or onions. The only problem is flavanol is very bitter and often is taken out when cocoa beans are treated to make them milder. So chances are the better the chocolate tastes, the less beneficial it is. …
Let me begin by quoting an interesting article that appeared in JAMA 100 years ago. A few days ago a famous American surgeon told a friend that it was a constant mortification to him that for his life-work he had not chosen business rather than medicine, and yet the annual income of this particular surgeon …
So often patients will try to increase their serotonin levels by taking only 5-HTP which is converted to serotonin. Increasing serotonin levels in the brain often will help with stabilizing mood swings such as depression and anxiety and insomnia. The problem with this approach is that when only 5-HTP is used it depletes the neurotransmitter …
One of my 13 year old son’s favorite TV show is Dirty Jobs. For those who have not seen this show the host of the show Mike Rowe films himself working on jobs that can be quite gross and disgusting. It is too bad Mike Rowe can’t go back in time 1,000 years ago in …
The last several months numerous articles have been written on how the US public is consuming trace amounts of pharmaceuticals such as antibiotics, hormones, mood-altering drugs and pain killers in each glass of water they drink. The pharmaceuticals wind up in the water supplies in 1 of 3 ways: they may be excreted unmetabolized by …
A recent article in the Journal of Urology, reported on the long term use of lemonade (3.7 years) and its beneficial effects on decreasing kidney stones. The therapy consisted of drinking 120ml of concentrated lemon juice mixed with 2 liters of water and consumed throughout the day. Prior to the experiment the patients were experiencing …